Writer

He's a self-confessed "happily confused" sort. But his demeanour tells a different story. In his baggy trousers and faded tees, he looks every inch a self-assured guy. Listen to him speak and it dawns upon you, he knows his mind only too well. Meet Patrick Neate, the 31-year-old hip-hop journalist turned writer, who shot to fame with his Twelve Bar Blues . The book not only won him the prestigious Whitbread Award but also established his credentials as a new age writer. An avid music aficionado, Neate...

Hakan Nesser is among the best-known Swedish crime writers , and also one of the most prolific. At the Jaipur Literature Festival , he told ET Magazine why he is not a political writer and why turning to the real life crime in Sweden for ideas is futile. Excerpts: The Far Right has been on the rise in Europe, including in Scandinavia. Is that reflected in the fiction there? Not my fiction, but society is always reflected in...

You have been writing since you were in school and over the years have become better at it. Now you want to make a career as a writer but don't know which course to choose. It can be confusing, especially when most of the curricula look inspiring but you're not sure whether anyone can 'teach' you to write. We have a few courses and student accounts here which will help, but before we discuss some of them in detail, there are a few points to ponder. Firstly, no one will guarantee that your...

NEW DELHI: Salman Rushdie is a "poor" and "sub-standard writer" who would have remained largely unknown but for his controversial book 'Satanic Verses', according to Markandey Katju , till recently a judge of the Supreme Court. Katju, who is now the Chairman of Press Council of India, criticised the admirers of India-born author based in Britain, saying they suffered from "colonial inferiority complex" that a writer living abroad has to be great. ...

SANGLI(MAHARASHTRA): Renowned Marathi literary critic , writer and translator M D Hatkananglekar died due to old-age related illness at a hospital here this morning. He was 89. Hatkanaglekar who had earlier been the president of Akhil Bhartiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan was admitted to a private hospital in Sangli about a fortnight back due to old-age related health problems. He breathed his last at around 10.20 AM today, family sources said. He is survived by wife, two...

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today paid a surprise visit to the Writers' Buildings, the erstwhile state secretariat, which is undergoing extensive renovation. The security staff and officials of some departments left in the building were taken by surprise when the chief minister stepped into the iconic building a little after noon, first time after the secretariat was shifted to Nabanna in Howrah. Sensing the relaxed mood of the staff and...

LONDON: Canadian short story writer Alice Munro has won this year's Man Booker International Prize worth 60,000 pounds (95,000 US dollars, 70,000 euros), the judges said on Wednesday. The panel, which comprised writers Jane Smiley, Amit Chaudhuri and Andrey Kurkov, praised the 77-year-old for the originality and depth of her work. "Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every...

How does one praise a man whom so few have heard of ? For writer Nabarun Bhattacharya, who passed away on Thursday, that would have been a rollicking challenge. Bhattacharya's reputation as a chronicler and jar-trapper of anarchy has been limited. But this is a country where unless you are feted by some Anglo-US jury or held aloft as a megaphone for the Youth, the chances of you being known are laughably bleak. Laughter and bleakness made...

The phenomenon was surely not new, but the craze for Hindi pulp fiction novels was never as strong as it was in the 1990s. Among those riding on the crest of the pulp fiction wave was Ved Prakash Sharma , a Meerut-based writer-cum-publisher, renowned for his detective novels. In an interview with Md Tausif Alam, Mr Sharma explained the story behind the market of Hindi pulp novels and his literary journey. How did you become a publisher...

Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd's publications have a long and storied history of enabling some of India's most distinguished minds to define, interpret, satirize and lend meaning to policy, politics, business and the many questions that life in general engender. Studies have consistently shown how well read and regarded the columns in our publications are. Each publication in our stable is well known for its columnists, whose opinions are cherished, criticized and, we daresay, treasured by...

Title suggested that the article will show me how to ride the market with ETFs. It did not. Writer named only one ETF, which is used by institutions, not by individuals. Are there no ETFs available for individuals? Could the reporter have given some names, along with their relative results, fees, history and background of managers? On the positive side, the title suggests the writer recognizes the importance of this subject, even though he failed to equal his usual superb writing.

KOLKATA: The restoration of the iconic Writers' Buildings, seat of Bengal administration since Independence , has gone a step ahead with the submission of two parts of the four-part final report by an expert committee to the state PWD department. The expert committee, assigned to carry out the renovation of the 237-year-old British-built building, is composed of members of the Jadavpur University's architecture, civil, metallurgy and some other departments. "I have...

Vilsen Gonsalves , 30 Creative Team Leader - Copy, McCann Worldgroup "After getting my degree, a Bachelor of Mass Media, I had to choose between art or copy. Art meant three more years of exams and my decision was made. Copy it was. And my lazy ass doesn't regret it one bit," admits Gonsalves, who recently returned from his first solo trip to Indonesia and Singapore, that was just a day before our email about his new HYC title....

Karachi: Acclaimed writer and leftist leader Sobho Gianchandani, who was given the sobriquet of "a man from Moen Jo Daro" by Rabindranath Tagore, today died in Pakistan's Larkana aged 94. Gianchandani, who studied at the Shantiniketan College in West Bengal, was the first non-muslim and non-urdu recipient of the renowned Kamal-e-Fun Award -- a top literary award given to writers in the field of literature. He was the founder of many progressive, democratic and nationalist...

Nikhil Mehrotra , 30 Creative Director, Contract Mehrotra scraped through graduation in commerce with just one takeaway: Debit what comes in, credit what goes out. His acquaintances suggested that advertising was the place for this wise-cracker and, wait for it, scatological song maker. Yeah. No catastrophic editorial error there. In fact, we learn he isn't the only adman fond of this fairly peculiar pass-time...

NEW DELHI: Voting patterns and consumption needs symbolises the changing values of Indian society, participating writers and thinkers at the India Non Fiction Festival said here today. The recent Lok Sabha elections underlined a need for change along with a strong desire of delivery from the state, participants at a panel discussion "The Great Indian Social" said. "The belief of change, rather than sectional needs (of society) as well as more and more...

We have always admired Bob Dylan the writer (though his singing was unbearable). We never imagined him as an endorser though and that too for lingerie. A far cry from the days when he wrote: Advertising signs that con you Into thinking you're the one That can do what's never been done That can win what's never been won

NEW DELHI: Rama, Ravana, Arjuna, Jesus Christ, Lord Shiva, Ganesha and the epics are becoming fodder for contemporary Indo-Anglian literature. Writers say it is a new way of looking at Indian culture and draw young readers. The reprint of two popular titles - "The Immortals of Meluha" by Amish Tripathy and "The Rozabal Line" by Ashwin Sanghi last month - brought the gods back from their heavenly abodes to play action games on earth. The books have been...

Online recipe site Cucumbertown has gone ahead with its theme of innovation by launching RecipeWriter - a smart, intuitive and user-friendly tool to get users more hooked to the world of food blogging than they already are. "And it is going to attract a new legion of fans and followers, because tools like this are catching on like wildfire," says company co-founder Cherian Thomas, a former engineer at Zynga. Cucumbertown is an online social network for amateur cooks and chefs....

A meal with Jerome Booth may seem like sitting down to eat with Lewis Carol's Mad Hatter. Booth wears many hats, and often successfully sells them. An economist, a writer , an investor in media and telecom technologies, a musician and an academic, Booth wore at least three hats during his recent India tour. He promoted his book Emerging Markets in an Upside Down World, he toured the country with The...